When an artist discovers that his long lost love died from a heroin overdose, he travels home to investigate but must face his own conscience.

SYNOPSIS

Twenty-five-year-old Maxfield Young is an up and coming artist, but his creativity and confidence continue to suffer as he battles a growing list of fears and phobias. Following a stress filled art exhibition held at an LA gallery, Max learns that his high school sweetheart, Raine Bennett, has died of a heroin overdose. Amidst concern from his business manager and current flame, Kali Stewart, he decides to fly back to his home town to attend Raine’s funeral.
Upon his return to small town America, he becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery of how Raine — an intelligent and motivated young woman — could become involved with heroin. Max searches for answers from a number of old friends, and believes he’s not being told the entire story.
With curiosity filled psychotic episodes beginning to take over, he relives his relationship with Raine. We learn the deep connection between the two high school seniors, and how their relationship forever alters their respective destinies. Max is forced to face his own personal history and demons as the truth of Raine’s death unfolds.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

There is a rising drug epidemic, spearheaded by Heroin within America. Towns have withered away leaving living corpses littered in alleyways, needles discarded at playgrounds and families to witness the ruin. Questions outweigh answers and they’re hard to ask. The subject itself is wrapped in shame, stereotypes and miss-information. Some media outlets have started to cover the epidemic, and books are published on what has brought it about, but most people still aren't aware unless they've come into contact first hand. It's not an easy subject to broach. Our goal is to raise awareness and help people who suffer from the addiction get clean.
Shooting in Vein is a psychological thriller with the goal of helping people empathize with addiction while creating an entertaining film that they’ll want to view more than once. What makes this film different is the audience views the effects of addiction through the lens of romantic relationship, which grips each person as deeply and intimately as heroin does.
When bringing up a subject as taboo as illicit drug use, it moves people; it forces people to make choices rational or otherwise. We want to raise awareness without attaching moral judgement on the people who suffer from it. So far the world’s narcotics policy has been built on prohibition and shame, which has given birth to a black market industry, social groups ravaged by heart ache and a blind eye to compassion. Movies can’t do everything, but they can herald a change of heart.

KEY CREW

Jared Januschka - Director

Jared grew up in Colorado and spent his teens working as a bike messenger to pay for acting classes 40 miles away in Denver. He was then accepted into California Institute of the Arts for their intensive acting program. In addition to performance, he studied screenwriting and worked a private internship with legendary producer Michael Gruskoff. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to write, direct and independently produced over 30 commercials for some of the largest brands in the world. He then invested the funds into his first short film, The Men of Santa Muerte, which has won numerous awards for Best Action film. Over the past year he's continued to do commercials and completed three more short films: See How They Run, The Sure Shot, and Cleveland’s Cookie.

For WORK EXAMPLES please visit JAREDJANUSCHKA.COM

Patrick Long - Producer

Patrick Long is a producer and editor based in Los Angeles, CA. Since migrating from his hometown of Rockville, MD to the west coast, Patrick has climbed his way up from interning in post-production to full time freelance producing and editing. In his 6 years of working in the industry, he has worked on a variety of projects spanning feature films, television, web-based content, and more. He is currently producing two feature films as well as running his own post-production company. When Patrick is not working he enjoys relaxing with his girlfriend and dog.